Dash-ing through the snow on a one horse opens slay. Hohoho. I think so you guys know what is coming today right. We’re going to be talking about the cryptocurrency Dash.

Yayyyyy. Alright, buckle up for a smooth journey up ahead. Broom-broom time to begin.

What is Dash

Dash ( earlier known as darkcoin and xcoin ) is an open source peer to peer based cryptocurrency that aids its users to send and receive money globally in the form of digital currency just like Bitcoin.

Like several other cryptocurrencies dash also eliminates the use of the middleman in its transaction system ( i.e., you can send and receive Dash without any middleman business ).

Apart from this, it currently offers instant transactions (InstantSend), private transactions (PrivateSend) and operates a self-governing and self-funding model that enables the Dash network to pay individuals and businesses to perform work that adds value to the network. This is something that Bitcoin doesn’t do in my opinion. Movin on, Dash’s decentralized governance and budgeting system makes it a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

It commenced its journey in 2014, and as of now, it is the 11th largest cryptocurrency regarding market cap after Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, etc. However, its value may change in the upcoming future because the very nature of cryptocurrencies is volatile. One day up and another day down.

How does it work

Dash’s unique structure runs on a two-tier network called the master node network. In addition to traditional Proof of Work (PoW) rewards for mining Dash, users are also rewarded for running and maintaining particular servers called master nodes. Thanks to this innovative two-tier network, Dash can offer innovative features in a trustless and decentralized way.

There’s a lot to be clarified here, so let us discuss what it means.

The Dash network’s first tier is composed of nodes — computers that communicate with one another within the system. Miners use these nodes to verify Dash transactions and create new coins.

The second tier is composed of master nodes. These are full nodes — computers that contain the entire blockchain of a cryptocurrency and impose rules within its blockchain. Master nodes aid in carrying out functional transactions for the Private Send and InstantSend feature. Moreover, they control the development of the Dash network.

So all in all this is how Dash seems to be operating on a daily basis. For further information, you guys can click here.

Algorithm

X11 is an extensively utilized hashing algorithm that was developed by Evan Duffield(Dash core developer). X11’s chained hashing algorithm employs a series of eleven systematic hashing algorithms for the sake of POW( proof of work). The reason for is that the processing allocation is fair and square and coins get allocated between its users in the same way as bitcoins were during their inception. The purpose of X11 was to ensure that the development of ASICs becomes challenging to replicate so that the currency had enough time for its establishment before mining centralization posed any threat to it. This approach was mostly successful, and in the earlier half of 2016, ASICs for X11 currently exists and comprises of a major portion of the network hash rate. However, this currently has not panned out at the same level of centralization that happened with bitcoin by looks of it. Probably because Dash is still in its infancy here and there is quite a lot of potential that is still untapped within it.

X11 is the designation given to the chained proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm which has been introduced within Dash. It was somewhat inspired by the chained-hashing approach of Quark, adding further “depth” and complexity by increasing the number of hashes, yet it differs from Quark in that the rounds of hashes are considered a priority rather than just picking x amount of hashes.

The X11 algorithm employes several rounds of 11 separate hashes (blake, BMW, groestl, to name a few) which in my opinion makes it one of the most secure and multifaceted cryptographic hashes employed by modern forms of digital currency.

The name X11 should not be associated with the open source GUI server that affords a graphical interface to Unix/Linux users.

The technology employed by Dash:

Dash utilizes particular servers called master nodes for powering its features, i.e., PrivateSend, InstantSend, and the governance and treasury system. Users get rewarded for running these master nodes; 45% of the block reward gets distributed to incentivize the masternode network.

Masternodes facilitate the following services:

1).InstantSend: This allows users to engage in near-instant transactions, i.e., you can send and receive your dash in a jiffy. Dash InstantSend transactions get entirely verified in a matter of four seconds.

2).PrivateSend: If you don’t want other people to know about your transaction history then using this feature ought to assist you in doing so. Because this feature provides financial privacy by obscuring the source of funds on the blockchain so that no x,y,z can know about your transaction history without your permission. A for amazing right?

3).Governance and Treasury: This provides stakeholders in Dash with the ability to determine the direction of the project and devotes 10% of the block reward to development of the project and ecosystem.

4).Dash Evolution: This intends to make transacting in cryptocurrency as easy as using PayPal. For more information on evolution, please click here.

More info. on masternodes

Master node owners should possess 1000 DASH. They can verify this claim that they make by signing a message and broadcasting it to the network. Now those coins can be shifted from a to b or someplace at any given point in time, but moving them would cause the master node to fall out of the queue and stop earning rewards. So it’s up to the individual owner to decide whether or not he or she wants this to happen.

Another fact regarding master node is that its users also are given voting rights on proposals. Each master node has one vote, and this vote could be utilized on budget proposals or other essential decisions that affect Dash.

Dash supply system

Dash Coins will be issued in the range of 16 to 22 million coins, until 2050+, depending on the difficulty.

The block reward is not steady as in they used to be 5 dashes per block initially and as I said earlier it gets reduced by 7% annually. It is subjected to low inflation, and with increasing hash rate there is a further downward adjustment of inflation (min reward 5 per block for 2014).

Dash also has a variable block reward that gets reduced by 7.1 % rate each year. The average block mining time is 2.5 minutes on the Dash blockchain, which makes it four times faster than Bitcoin. Now is Litecoin copying Dash or vice-versa? Let me know in the comments below.

Problems solved by Dash

Dash has been created with the intention of addressing these 3 fundamental problems that are prevalent (existing) in the bitcoin network.

1). Privacy: Remember the private send feature that I mentioned above that helps you send and receive Dash whilst staying anonymous on the internet. That is mostly the predominant way that dash could be trying to achieve this goal of theirs. However, this again is just my opinion of how things work. You can agree or disagree with it.

2). Transaction speed: Bitcoin takes 10 mins to forge 25BTC whereas Dash just like Litecoin takes 2.5 mins to forge a certain number of the dash.

3).Governance: This means that transactions on this blockchain are secured as in confirmed by the 2000 TerraHash of X11 Asics computing power with over 4,500 servers hosted globally.

Now with that let us move on to the next point that is…

Difference Bitcoin and Dash

Dash is pretty much like Bitcoin in several ways. You can utilize it for buying stuff online or hodl it for future profit (how much ever it may be). It also operates on an openly displayed blockchain that stores every transaction that happens within it.

Dash is also attempting to resolve specific issues that Bitcoin has encountered. Speed seems to one of the several problems. Dash transactions are verified within four seconds while sending Bitcoins to someone may take 10 minutes or even hours in some instances.

Transaction fees are another problem with bitcoin. The average cost to be incurred regarding Bitcoin transaction is approximately 15-20$ and sometimes even higher. Now compare this with Dash where $0.4 you need to pay only $0.4 for sending Dash to anyone you may want to. However, the fee may most probably be a spike in this fees when more people dash to get some dash before its price dash up and they have to wait for it to dash down. Lol.

Another significant issue concerning bitcoin is the absence of a governance mechanism. Now what this means is that it will be tough to make substantial changes to the cryptocurrency without a hard fork which then would give birth to a new cryptocurrency in the market. Bitcoin Cash was also born similarly (as per my knowledge). However, Dash is unique as in it has a voting mechanism in place. As a result, you can take quick action regarding necessary changes to be made on the platform.

As opposed to bitcoin, Dash has been self-funded, i.e., 45 percent of newly forged Dash goes to the miners, and 45 percent to master nodes. The rest — 10 percent — goes to a treasury for funding the development team, marketing, customer support centers, and so forth.

There are a couple of other differences between these two cryptocurrencies, but these are the ones worth knowing.